Trigger warning: violence, rape
Spoilers ahead!
The Netflix film “Thar”, starring Anil Kapoor, Harsh Kapoor, Fatima Sana Shaikh among others, depicts how the quest for revenge brings the beast out of a human being, leading to the eventual degradation of humanity.
The setting of the film is in a small village named Munabao situated in the Thar desert. The desert is symbolic as the long barren stretches of land accompanied with the scorching heat of the sun, the carcass of a buffalo, the abandoned fort and the scanty outgrowth of trees, foreshadows the dearth of humanity caused by revenge. This acts as the central theme of the film.
Thar begins with a gruesome murder of a person named Suva, who is hung from a tree. However, the murderer is kept anonymous, which marks the entry of the police officer Surekha Singh (Anil Kapoor) who is tired of leading a mundane life and finally finds some thrill—something he always yearned for and at the end of career. Hence begins his investigation.
A series of murder takes place after the first murder which makes it more difficult for Singh and his assistant, Bhure (Satish Kaushik), to reach the roots of the evil that brought chaos in the Munabao village. Initially though, the village was portrayed as peaceful and uneventful.
Eventually, as the film progresses, we witness that within this peace lurked a murky world steeped with gang of opium smugglers and led by Hanif Khan, who acted as a bridge in flourishing this illegal trade between India and Pakistan.
How Thar Addresses Gender And Caste Inequalities
In adding fuel to the fire, there comes a vengeful stranger named Siddharth (Harsh Kapoor) who disguises himself as an antique dealer to fulfill his mission.
Munabao becomes a hub of bloodshed and crime in due time. The bleak landscape of desert becomes synonymous to the bleak view of humanity as evident in the scenes when Siddharth captures and tortures his targets (who raped and killed his wife), in unimaginable inhuman ways that made shivers run down my spine.
The debasement of humanity is also prevalent in the oppression of the women of the village by the male of the house, as shown in the scenes where Panna asserts control over his wife Chetna (Fatima Sana Shaikh), thrashing her when she interacts with Siddharth, a male stranger in his absence.
Caste issues also paves the way for the decaying humanity evident in the scene where Bhure while exchanging conversation with Singh, talks of how no one would eat from his restaurant if he ever opened one, as he belongs to a lower caste.
Two narratives of revenge run parallel through the film. One is the revenge of Khan upon Singh for killing his men; the other is the revenge of Siddharth upon Panna and his men for raping and brutally killing his wife. Both these narratives are intermingled in the end, exposing the desperation the quest for revenge infuses in a person.
Thar Will Leave You With A Bitter Message On Revenge
Though Singh grapples with the missing pieces of the jigsaw puzzle of his investigation, risking his own life, he says that, “The path of revenge is fraught with evil, It won’t let you live, but it won’t let you die either.. Revenge neither offers justice nor ends the hate.”
Revenge is vicious and once one enters the cycle of revenge there’s no going back. The quest for revenge blinds a human to such an extent that they degenerate into beasts.
Thar begins with revenge and ends with revenge, expounding the inevitability of revenge, giving us the picture of a cynical world devoid of humane emotions.
“The avenger always digs two graves. One for the enemy, other for the self. It continues until he inevitably falls to his death,” runs a line in the film. And, the circle of life of all the avengers of this film can be defined by this one phrase.
Thar is not a film that ends on a positive note offering us any kind of hope, rather it leaves us disturbed emphasizing on the stark reality of the grim world.
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Written by Srilekha Mitra